The Lost King

by Margaret Weis

  "The boy could be worth his weight in golden eagles," XJ snapped. "And you want to hand him over to that pompous ass Sykes? I suggest we make no decisions without having more data. I'll bring us out of the Jump. Why don't you find us a nice little war where we can pick up some quick cash and relax while we decide what to do next?"

  "Military academy!" Tusk reiterated, glaring at the computer. Realizing that XJ was ignoring him—and that the computer wouldn't release the bottle—Tusk flopped himself back into his chair, activated the vid screen, and inserted a new Mercenary Mag disk he'd picked up on Syrac Seven.

  "Classified," he ordered.

  "Personals? Spaceplanes? Weapons?" the mag inquired.

  "Conflicts," Tusk said. He noticed that the harp music had stopped. Dion must have fallen asleep. Tusk hoped the kid had made peace with the demons who hounded a man after the death of someone he loved . . . and hated.

  "Blood feuds, corporate wars, interplanetary wars, intraplanet wars, interstellar wars—"

  "No blood feuds, mag. Those guys get carried away, never know when to quit. Closest I ever got to being blown to cosmic dust was in a blood feud. And no religious wars. Those bastards are sore losers, sacrifice you on the spot if you retreat. Fortunately"—Tusk adjusted himself more comfortably in his chair—"there're enough planetary wars to go around. Give us that list, will you?"

  The mag complied. Tusk scanned the list, frowning. That one was too risky, he decided. Like siblings who have learned to argue quietly lest it bring down the wrath of their parents, conflicting groups were constantly mindful of the watchful eye of the Warlords. There had been following the revolution, an increase in the demand for mercenaries.

  The revolution had been well planned. The night the king met his death in the Glitter Palace, certain hand-picked rebel officers in the Royal Armed Forces had stepped in to take command, either killing or imprisoning those superiors loyal to the king. The takeover occurred simultaneously in every major system, on every planet, in every unit. But an operation that big can't go unnoticed. Many commanders had known something was up and—so it was rumored—had tried desperately to convince their king of the danger. Amodius Starfire had refused to heed their warnings. A devoutly religious man, he believed that he ruled by divine right, that the Creator would never allow the monarchy to fall.

  Many soldiers in the Royal Armed Forces died in the coup that night, but it was discovered the next day—the day that became known among the revolutionaries as Coffin Run because of the huge numbers of orders for coffins—that many more royalists had escaped. At first the Revolutionary Congress had ordered these soldiers hunted down and destroyed. This grisly quest took up time, money, and manpower, and eventually the Congress—concerned with holding elections, placing their candidates in office, and a myriad other functions—ordered that the search for those still misguidedly loyal to a dead king be called off.

  For many of these men and women, soldiering was the only trade they knew, and they began to sell their services to the highest bidder. And there were always plenty of bidders. Although the Commonwealth preached peace and brotherhood among the nations (and maintained, every election cycle, that this goal was near fulfillment), the truth was that there were just as many or possibly more conflicts under the new regime as there had been under the old one.

  The citizen generals were supposed to keep peace with their sectors, but they protested to the Congress that they wasted time and money putting out minor flare-ups. The Congress, in response, established intervention guidelines. Cities, states, corporations, and planets were allowed their bickerings and squabbles as long as they posed no threat to the sector or the galaxy at large. Mercenaries could find work in almost any of these conflicts. Those soldiers of fortune who, like Tusk, were hot carefully avoided any conflict that might attract undue attention.

  The Warlords knew that the Congress was never likely to bring peace to the quarreling systems. The Congress itself rarely agreed on anything, although their press releases would have people believe otherwise. There'd been no major system wars, but that was due to the generals, not to the Congress or the President. And now the generals were eyeing each other askance—or so rumor had it. Rumor also had it that one or two major systems were considering pulling their money and support out of the Republic. Secession. Civil war. Tusk immediately crossed these off his mental list. Step over the Warlords' unseen boundaries and reprisal would be swift and deadly.

  "Nope." Tusk scanned the rows of code names and numbers that every mercenary could easily translate. "Too small. No money. And that one's too big. Four planets and a moon? Nuclear bombs? Couldn't pay me enough." He continued to read to the end of the column, thinking that the military academy might win out by default. Then he whistled. There it was.

  "Here's something, XJ." Tusk read off the coordinates to the computer. "Vangelis."

  "Planetary war, right?"

  "Intraplanet. Nothing likely to involve the big boys."

  "Money?"

  "You bet. Guess who's in charge? John Dixter."

  "General Dixter? Excellent. Well, have you made up your mind? Do I plot a course for Vangelis or Dagot?"

  "Dixter'd be a good man for the kid to know. He taught me a lot. We could always take Dion to Dagot later. It's the middle of the semester, anyway," he added for the computer's benefit.

  Blinking in triumph, XJ placed the spaceplane on a new heading and returned to its studies.

  Tusk sat back in his chair. Now that they were out of Jump, he could watch the stars. He considered ordering XJ to make the Jump again—there was a Lane to Vangelis from this location, he was certain. But, after consideration, Tusk rejected the idea. Never wise to Jump into a war zone. Approach cautiously, monitor the transmissions. Vangelis wasn't that far. Traveling close to light speed, the trip would probably take them a week or so.

  "I've got a lot to teach the kid, anyway," Tusk reflected.

  "Wouldn't do to land him cold in the middle of a war. Not that he's gonna start shooting or anything," the mercenary added hastily, going cold at the thought. "Still, he should know how to use a lasgun. Maybe I'll give him some lessons on flying." Tusk grinned. This might be fun. There was nothing more boring than space flight. He and XJ got on each other's nerves. It would be good to have someone else to talk to. Someone human.

  Tusk yawned again and stretched. He had another bottle hidden in his locker. "I'm going to he down," he said, heaving himself out of his chair. But before he could reach the ladder, XJ-27 began to flash and whir in as much excitement as the computer was programmed to exhibit.

  "Tusk"—it spoke in a subdued voice, pitched low, apparently, so as not to wake the sleeping boy—"sit down in front of the vid screen. You're not going to believe what I'm about to show you!"

  "Do I really want to know?"

  "Why do humans fear knowledge?" XJ demanded irritably.

  "Because we've seen what can happen when we get too smart. We built computers, for one thing," Tusk said, pleased. He rarely put one over on XJ, and he considered that he'd scored a point. He thought longingly of the bottle. "Is this gonna take long? I don't think I can stay awake."

  "Oh, you'll stay awake all right."

  Not liking XJ's tone, Tusk sat back down and cleared the mag off the computer screen. At first the screen was blank, then column after column of extremely fine print scrolled into view.

  Tusk groaned. "Come off it, will you? What is this?" He peered at it closely. "Why, it's a blasted government document! You expect me to read that? Condense it!"

  With a vicious bleep, XJ killed the image on the screen. There was a momentary pause, then several short paragraphs appeared.

  "That's better." Tusk settled back. "Hey, where'd you get this stuff?" He sat forward suddenly. "It's marked classified!"

  "I was tied into Lord Sagan's central computer for updated mechanical data before we . . . er . . . departed his service, and while I was there I did some browsing around on my own. Picked up a few things th
at interested me, mostly about the revolution. Never know when that sort of stuff can come in handy."

  "Yeah? For what?"

  "Blackmail, for one," XJ said smugly.

  Tusk said something beneath his breath.

  "What was that?" XJ demanded.

  "I said when you decide to blackmail Derek Sagan, let me know so I can watch him rip your electronic guts out with his bare hands. Now go on, before I fall asleep."

  "This data you will find particularly interesting. Much about what truly happened that night in the Glitter Palace was kept secret for fear of adverse public reaction. When Robes siezed control, he moved quickly to present his side of the story to the general populace. One of the first orders of business, therefore, was to secure all palace records. Much was destroyed, or at least so the people believe. I'll bet the press'd be real interested to know how much Warlord Sagan retains in his files."

  "Uh-huh. And you found it all, right?"

  "No, of course not! The Warlord's got it locked up so tight that even he probably can't remember how to access it. But there were a few things lying around that he apparently didn't consider important. Like this. It's just a file that a data record computer—"

  "A what?"

  "Data record computer. Lots of big corporations and all the government offices have them. In this instance, small cameras and tiny microphones located in all the rooms of the Glitter Palace fed information to this central computer. It analyzed all the data it received and noted down events by date and time. The information recorded is pretty cryptic. It wasn't meant to go into detail, after all. It was designed for use by historians and those in charge of budgets. But you can read between the lines. I've deleted what's not appropriate."

  Tusk grunted. He could hear the boy stir in his hammock and he suddenly realized how truly tired he was. Rubbing his eyes again, he blinked at the screen. " '1800 hours. Colonel Derek Sagan, Golden Squadron, arrives at Palace. 1809 hours. Colonel Derek Sagan, Golden Squadron, requests audience with King Amodius Starfire. 1830 hours. King Amodius Starfire denies Colonel Sagan.' Hey, hold that a moment." Tusk's interest quickened. "That's odd, isn't it? Why would Sagan request an audience with the man he was going to betray and murder?"

  "I wondered that myself. Keep reading.'

  "'1831 hours. Cook removes one side of beef from freezing chamber. 1832. Cook requests following: one sack potatoes, two sacks flour, two sacks sugar—' What the hell is this?"

  "Sorry. Slipped by me. Supply list. I told you, this computer recorded everything, including information on running the household."

  "'Salt, mousetraps . . .'Would you get rid of this? Thanks. Here we go. '1900 hours. Changing of the guard. Arrival of the Guardians. Guest list—'"

  "They were coming to attend the banquet in honor of their victory over the Corasians," XJ said.

  "Yeah. Hey, don't roll that by so fast. There's my father's name. You know, he never talked to anyone about what happened that night. Not that I ever asked him. I was a stupid, blaster-happy kid. What did I care about the old man and his war stories? Now I wish I had. It might have helped me understand why they did . . . what they did to him."

  "The Guardians were all in attendance," XJ told him. "That was why the rebels chose that night to attack."

  "'2200 hours. Enemy forces launch assault against Glitter Palace. 2229 hours. Enemy forces invade palace."' Tusk shook his head. "Read between the lines, you said. This is spooky. Think about this machine, calmly recording all this while hundreds of people fought for their lives."

  "The battle was hopeless from the beginning," XJ said. "Robes had everything under control. His plan was brilliant. The only ones who could have possibly hoped to stop the revolution were the Guardians. They alone had the influence with the people to prevent the coup from succeeding—or at least make it pretty tough. And here they were, locked in a banquet chamber—weaponless as befitted a ceremony of state. All but one of them, of course. He had his weapon—"

  "'2230 hours. Death of Aladais Arocus Amodius Starfire. 2230.15 hours. General chaos.' This machine had a gift for understatement, didn't it? How many of the Guardians died that night?"

  "Hundreds. The true count was never known, of course. Robes put out orders to find any who escaped and bring them to trial—the last of the supporters of the tyrannical monarchy. The most famous of all those who escaped alive were the members of the Golden Squadron. That included your father—"

  "I sometimes think he wished he hadn't. He was a changed man when he came back. I was only nine, but I remember.

  That's when things started going wrong between us. Damn it!" Tusk slammed his hand down on the arm of the chair. "I didn't understand! Why didn't he take the time to tell me, to explain? But no. He was so blasted proud—"

  "All right, all right. You can spend the night kicking yourself. We're coming up on what I want you to read. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The Golden Squadron. You know the old story that went around about them. How they had supposedly agreed to go along with their commander, Derek Sagan, and lead the revolt, but they betrayed him at the last moment. Because of that, he's been making this notorious 'hunt' for them for the past seventeen years—royalists, enemies of the people, and all that."

  "That was why he murdered my father."

  "But why torture him?"

  Tusk stood up. "This is stupid. I don't want to read any more—"

  "Listen to me!" XJ insisted. "If this search for the Guardians was politically motivated, as the Congress keeps insisting, then why take your father off and torture him? Why not a public trial and execution? No, they're after something . . . or someone."

  "And you think we've found him? A seventeen-year-old kid? Why?"

  "Read on!" XJ was triumphant. "I have the answer."

  Tusk lowered himself back into the chair. "I'll give you five minutes, then I'm gone. This better be good. Let's see, 2230 hours, death of Aladais Arocus Amodius Starfire and so on . . . '2230.30 hours. Child born to Princess Semele Starfirem, Son.'"

  Tusk flexed his hands. His fingers had gone numb with cold, though there were beads of sweat on his upper lip. "Did you turn down the heat again?"

  "Put on a sweater." XJ's screen went blank for a moment. "We're conserving fuel. It costs, you know. Enough of the data computer. Look at this."

  "A genealogy!" Tusk wiped his hand over his mouth. "First supply lists, now begats and begots."

  "Shut up and read."

  "Okay, so the lady had impressive relatives. So what?"

  "Lady Semele Starfire. A direct descendant of the Royal Family—on both sides. Father and mother were cousins. And she was the king's sister-in-law. Her husband was the younger brother. Now look at this."

  "A death list. Oh, wonderful. We're going from bad to worse."

  "All those in the Glitter Palace whose deaths were recorded during that night," XJ said. "I'll bet this is one of the only accurate lists to have survived. You'll note the names of Guardians. This is, of course, how Sagan knew who was alive and who wasn't. One of his staff members must have made this list before the palace was destroyed. Scan down. There you go. 'Semele Starfire.'"

  "Poor woman. I can imagine—"

  "Keep reading!"

  "All right!" Tusk snarled. "There, I'm finished. So what?"

  "What about her baby?"

  "What about the baby?"

  "It wasn't listed."

  "So." Tusk heaved himself out of the chair. "It's too friggin' cold in here. Something's wrong with the life-support systems—"

  "Tusk—"

  "Look, you could easily miss a dead baby in all that confusion. I'm going to bed. You trash this stuff and work on life-support—"

  "The computer listed dead servants, janitors. Here's the cook and her helpers. It wouldn't miss a baby, Tusk," XJ continued relentlessly. "Especially a direct descendant of the Royal Family. Especially a child who was, at that moment, heir to the throne!"

  The computer hummed to itself in satisfaction.

  Sno
rting, Tusk slammed his hand down on the controls, erasing the screen. "Not a word to the kid, understand?"

  "Sure." The computer began shutting itself down for the night.

  Tusk climbed the ladder slowly. His legs felt heavy, his feet were numb. Probably from the cold. Pulling himself up into his living quarters, he started to activate the lights, then remembered. The kid was asleep. Fumbling around in the dark, Tusk found his locker, opened it, and retrieved the bottle. He swung himself into his hammock, lay back and swallowed a mouthful of the intoxicant known as jump-juice because its effects were supposedly similar to those experienced making the Jump to hyperspace. Tusk sighed as the soothing liquid slid down his throat, leaving a warm glow behind.

  The plane was night-silent, the only sounds being the comforting whir and whoosh of life-support, the steady drone of the engines, and the occasional clicks or muffled bleeps as the computer continued its job of running the Scimitar. In the hammock next to him, Tusk heard the boy talking to himself in his sleep. A jarring, discordant note sounding from the syntharp made Tusk start.

  "Kid's fallen asleep with the damn thing in his hand," Tusk muttered. Groaning, he fought his way out of the hammock and stumbled through the semidarkness to the kid's berth. Hidden beneath a blanket, the instrument was revealed by its bright beams of light. Carefully and quietly, Tusk removed the harp from the boy's sleep-limp hand and propped it up against a locker.

  Lying back down, the mercenary took another pull from the bottle.

  Heir to the throne. The kid might be the rightful ruler of the whole blasted galaxy.

  Fervently and with feeling, Tusk said, "Bullshit!"

  "I heard that!" XJ snapped. "And if you think it's cold in here now, just wait until morning!"

  Sighing, Tusk grabbed a blanket, drew it over his head, and, cradling the bottle in his arms, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Who, or why, or which, or what . . .

  Edward Lear, "The Akond of Swat"

  Tusk woke, shivering. Calling down imprecations on the computer's metal head, he pulled on his winter fatigues, including his leather flight jacket. The kid's hammock was empty and he could hear voices from below. He reached the ladder just in time to hear the kid say, "That doesn't prove anything."